My cousin Derek, according to the whole family, is just a tad bit out there, and apparently its fit for TV. What isn't fit for television these days though, right?
So my cousin eats raw meat, no biggie right? Lots of popular dishes are made of raw meat, theres Sushi, Steak Carpaccio, and Ceviche. Ok, so raw meat is tolerable by societies standards, but he takes this to a whole other level.
He has taken the Paleo Diet( or Caveman Diet if you prefer) and in my mind perverted it to his own standard of wackiness. A brief explanation of the Paleo Diet is, no dairy, beans, potatoes, or legumes, also on the big no no list is anything processed, salts and sugars. You are supposed to eat lots of meats, and a few veggies, fruits and nuts. Ok, nothing to bad so far.
The Paleo Diet basically says if it wasn't around 10,000 years ago don't eat it. From a dietary stand point it seems pretty sound, eat your veggies, and meats, stay away from carbs(grains and potatoes), sugars( candies) and oils(the ones that are manufactured) I could almost live off of this, although I would miss my milk, taters, and my dear dear salt, but I could survive. Derek takes this diet to a bad bad place(in my opinion), to Fear Factor levels of insaneness.
Derek eats fermented or rotten meat. If eating rotten or fermented meat, and meat he eats is eaten raw, uncooked, and untainted by chemicals. Yes, I said raw. Not all of the meat he consumes is fermented or rotten. However, some of the meat that has been fermented even has maggots. Told you it was Fear Factor type insaneness. He also doesn't eat vegetables. I couldn't live without vegetables. I also could not even look at meat with maggots, nonetheless eat it. He does all this with the firm belief that is is healthy for him. Derek believes that all the nutrients you need can be found in the tissues of the animals he consumes and that eaten in their raw form keeps them from being cooked out. Derek also says there are harmful things in vegetables, even if grown organically. I don't see how you can sit there with a straight face and say veggies are bad for you, then eat maggoty meat. I am sorry I can't get past the maggoty meat. I am thoroughly convinced Derek would have been awesome on Fear Factor.
However, Fear Factor aside, a show does want to talk to Derek about his eating habits. In comes a very well know production company(Cough Cough Discover Channel/Animal Planet), complete with camera men, sound guys(with their huge mics and the little sneaky ones) and the producer. They film his meat locker where he keeps his meat, which he buys in massive proportions. The film crew also films him shopping in a store with his brother. Enter Heather and the rest of my wacky family.
So they come to my grandmothers house, where they proceed to set up lights, check equipment, and sound, wire certain people with those sneaky little hidden mics. They want to film the family eating a meal together, thankfully we do not have to eat what Derek is eating. I only intend to watch the whole thing being filmed because I mean seriously how many chances do you get to watch something be filmed like that.
They all sit down to have a typical family dinner of pot roast, potatoes( that dreaded high carb, high toxin food), green beans, and carrots, oh yeah I almost forgot that other dreaded non Paleo Diet food, the dreaded dinner roll with the evil butter as a side kick. Derek had his own raw food. I bet every says yummmmm, taters, beef and butter, yuck raw meat, I know I do. So everyone is sitting there eating, I am trying my best to stand out of the way just watching the film crew film my family eating. There I am tucked away in my corner behind the director guy, while they( my other three semi normal family members) are asking Derek questions about his diet while they eat their pot roast dinner full of supposedly bad toxins and chemicals, and Derek sits there eating his fermented meat and coconut butter, which is supposedly better for you. I can't take it anymore!!! It's screaming at me in my head, WHY DONT YOU EAT VEGETABLES???? I ask the producer if I can ask Derek that, he's like sure stand right over there where the camera can see you, and kinda gives me a little shove. So there I am beet red in the face with cameras and lights in my face, asking my crazy cousin why he doesnt eat his veggies. I mean they are good for you right? The doctors cant all be wrong. We discuss this back in forth in front of the cameras, I then ask more questions about his weird eating habits. I hear a whisper in my ear, its the producer, ask him this ...... he says, whispering a question in my ear, which I then ask my quirky cousin. So for the next ten minutes I have this producer occasionally putting questions into my mouth, which of course gives me more questions to ask. Ok, finally the family dinner ends, they want us all to keep talking so they can get a wide shot of all of us talking to mix in with the sound from earlier that they didn't get wide shots of. Whew, I made it through, for now.
After all the filming is done, I am standing in the kitchen smoking a cig, when the producer comes over, he wants me to come tomorrow to a group family discussion. So I guess once again I will be on camera with my family, and I will finally be forced to acknowledge these crazy people are in fact related to me. I mean the last thing a crazy wacky person like myself wants to admit, is that this wackiness is indeed hereditary, and seems to have never skipped a generation at all, and will most likely be passed to any offspring. I would like to take this time to apologize to any future generations of the family, there was never any hope in you being normal. On the bright side however, you now have someone to blame it on.
This is only the first episode, so maybe it will never make it to T.V.
Yes some cultures eat maggoty foods, such as cheese. Yes, some cultures eat fermented meat or fish. Some cultures also believe that eating poisons in small amounts can be a religious experience. Its not for everyone. I am all about the "to each his own" and so forth. I am also very very glad Derek does not bring his food with him to family functions, as I think we might all just loose some weight, because we simply would be to sick to our stomachs from watching him eat, to actually eat any food no matter how good, tasty, and greasy is might be.
I do suggest however that people do look up the Paleo Diet, it supposedly makes you loose weight, be healthier. I however dont suggest taking it as far as Derek has.
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